“With Qlik DataMarket, users have access to a wealth of external data that, when cross-referenced with their own data, provides much-needed context and drives deeper insights. Users can search custom, syndicated and public data and compare normalized data from different sources to benchmark and verify, then visualize the data to gain insights and understand important associations and relationships. For example—a sales manager could add population data to sales data for a more comprehensive looks at market penetration, or pull in weather information to understand the effect of weather on retail sales. With context for your data from the cloud, your insights become even more powerful.”

This is an area that is going to become increasingly important, and one that Microsoft – with rich connectivity between Excel and the Azure Datamarket – has effectively had to itself for too long.

My 2012 podcast with DataMarket CEO Hjálmar Gíslason and conversations in 2012 and 2014 with Microsoft execs associated with the Azure Datamarket shine more light on the opportunities here…